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Topic: Hive placement- Shady, tree lined lot (Read 3078 times)

My place has tons of trees, and only the front yard where I mow gets something like full sun. I tried one box last year right in front of the kitchen window, where we could all look out the window and see the bees coming and going, that has about 3-4 hours sun, and I got tons of honey from it, but then, 2 weeks after harvesting the super , the bees swarmed and left. Now, I am getting ready for next year, and want as many as 7 boxes, but, again, I have very limited areas that have good sun access. I did invest in the whole miller beetlejail and beetlejail bottom boards, with all kinds of cool built in oil traps. Also, I have glued and nailed on 2 inch closed cell foam to the outside of my mains and supers, so that they would stay warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. I am in the top right hand corner of Florida.

Honey bees mostly forage between sun up and ~ 3:00. After that they sit back and enjoy a mint julep :buttkick: OK so I am the one with the mint julep :brian: but flights normally stop at about 3. So inspecting a hive is easier from 11 to 1:30. After 4 til sundown I try not to go into my hives unless I have a veil on and a spray bottle of light sugar water. In short you want the sun on the entrance in the morning and some shade in the late afternoon. Full sun all day is also ok if there is a slight air flow to help cool things down. I would avoid complete shade, but then I have never tried complete shade. -Mike

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I am in Central Arkansas and have some hives in full sun.Others I have positioned to where the front gets morning sun a then the hive get afternoon shade during the summer.Now as far as foam on the hive bodies I don't.If you put foam on the hives and say it's 30 degrees F and then it decides to warm up.The insulation will act as an insulator and not let the hive warm up, in other words it will hold in the cool temps.That's why I don't use a foam insulation.

I had feral bees living in a hollow trees near my house for a couple years. My house in a hollow with dense hardwoods. There is a small amount of sun light hitting the ground during mid day. From google earth you see only trees when you put in my address that is how dense and shady it is. Just saying they must do ok with shady locations or they would not have moved there.

All my exposure to bees before now was all wooded area - bee trees. Except once a friend of mine showed me some in the walls of their old home place. From that I would imagine they do okay in shade but they may do better in sun.

Welcome to the forum. You may want to update your profile so folks can see where you're from. Then they can have a better idea on how to answer you questions in the future. 6 months into bee keeping and really enjoying it.

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Bees do fine in shade. Small hive beetles do even better than the bees in shade. They will kill the hive if they get enough shade.

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

You mentioned that after you harvested your supers, the hive swarmed? It is well noted that after harvest time is is when SHB populations explode, so maybe your hive absconded? Shade is definitely the SHB's friend, had a gal get ahold of me this summer , she was overrun w/ em. She had the hive setting in the shade, got her to move them into full sun and they started going away (along w/ giving a whole lot of em the hive tool test LOL)

This hive I am guessing probably didn't have many hive beetles as I went overboard with the miller beetle jail things. I mean, the bottom board has a built in beetle trap in the back and then there was the entrance trap, so that the only way in had to go over a oil trap, and also there was a miller beetle frame that took the place of a real frame, plus there was something like 5 of the little plastic oil traps that are put between the frames. My guess is they just left....one of those things maybe.

I will add that here in Central Arkansas the Small Hive Beetles are a major problem especially in the shade.Every Bee Tree I worked this past season was literally eat up with small hive beetles.I use the Beetle Barn from Rossman Apiary store.It works pretty good, last time I checked them I had 60 or so in one trap.I place one in the top and one inside the entrance at the bottom.I quit using screened bottom boards.

I never had any luck with any beetle barn. The bottom board oil traps has been a God-send tho. After I started using them I would say I never saw more than five beetles in my 2 eight frame deeps at one time. Also at that time I moved them further out in the sun.

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When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - then you know your nation is doomed.

It seems A few positives do exist for us Northern Beeks. For one, I've only seen ONE SHB up here, ever, and it came with a queen purchased from Texas. It did not survive. I believe we get too cold for them to survive our winters.

For the same reason, Northern Beeks tend to put their colonies in full sun with hopes that it will soften the winter experience for their bees, there is some research and logic behind the practice. That said; we do get HOT and HUMID up here during summer and many BEEKS have developed methods to reduce the sun from beating on their hives, I use camo webbing as is needed myself, stretched across the same posts used for the electric fence with a little modification. It can be rolled up or across as needed and doubles as a wind break during winter.

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"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

I'm about 200 miles west of you in the capital city... try to get as much sun as possible for SHB control. They are bad in Florida and I almost lost two hives in my first year as a beek for having my colonies in the shade. I moved them to the only available sunny area in the yard (back) and they get 5-6 hours day.

Although I still battle some SHB, it's a "night and day" change in the sheer numbers of SHB to control due to the sunlight.

I got in touch with the parking meter guys (who double as a political sign picker upper after voting) and I have about several hundred of those signs to use a bait traps for SHB. They really do a good job for the low numbers of SHB that I have now... if you are not familiar with the traps, here is a link with several of the trap videos.

Thanks....I love the fatbeeman youtube videos. I had not seen those concerning shb traps. I guess the shb eat thru one end of the crisco and go in and get the boric acid on them and die. I would have thought that the crisco itself would kill the shb, kind of like how Vaseline is supposed to stop bugs from the ground from going up into the hive. I place cinder blocks on the ground and then took the sheet metal pier caps and put a mixture of vaseline and baby oil on both sides of the pier cap and then I put a shelf on top of pier caps and then the hive. My thought was that no bug could climb around the vaseline covered pier cap.

Problem with SHB is that they fly in instead of crawling but your moats will keep ants etc out. I've used all kinds of traps but I think the best two that I have used are the boric acid traps and screen bottom board with the sliding drawer with veggie oil. With the drawer, it will kill varroa as well. Just my 2¢.